A provision in the America Invents Act (AIA) mandates that the USPTO work with and support intellectual property law associations across the country in the establishment of pro bono programs designed to assist financially under-resourced independent inventors and small businesses. To this end, the largest patent pro bono program in the US, the California Inventors Assistance Program (CIAP), was established in

California Lawyers for The Arts (CLA), which administers the CIAP, as well as attorneys who helped to establish and run the CIAP, will talk about their experiences helping out low income inventors, and will discuss practices that the CIAP has put in place to ameliorate concerns of conflicts, malpractice insurance and possible extended engagements with patent pro bono clients. The attorneys will also discuss how firms, private practitioners and corporations can get involved in this exciting program.

PRESENTERS:Bob Pimm is Chief Learning Officer and Director of Legal Services for California Lawyers for the Arts. CLA is a nonprofit tax-exempt service organization founded in 1974 that provides lawyer referrals, dispute resolution services, educational programs, publications and a resource library to creative artists of all disciplines, arts organizations. and independent inventors. Bob is also the Book Publishing Chair of the American Bar Association’s Forum on the Entertainment and Sports Industries where he served as Editor-in-Chief of Entertainment and Sports Lawyer from 2002 until 2007 . Bob has authored books, chapters, and numerous articles on legal and business aspects of the book publishing industry including articles about new technologies and the emerging e-book industry. Examples include Protection Racket: Are Copyright Lawyers and their Clients Shaking Down the Public?, a chapter in Thomson-West’s Entertainment, Publishing and the Arts Handbook; Riding the Bullet to the eBook Revolution, a chapter in Thomson-West’s Entertainment, Publishing and the Arts Handbook; coauthor of the first and second editions of Opening a Bookstore: The Essential Planning Guide.

Erik Metzger is a senior patent attorney with Intel Corporation. Erik also manages the IP and arts pro bono programs at Intel, in which Intel volunteers attorneys work with qualified inventors and artists throughout California to assist them on their legal matters, including filing patent applications with the USPTO. Intel attorneys partner with local law firms to assist artists and inventors whose matters are referred to them through California Lawyers for the Arts. In addition, Intel Foundation (Intel’s charitable organization) contributes to California Lawyer’s for the Arts in proportion Intel attorneys spend volunteering for matters referred to them. Intel volunteers consistently contribute more than 1000 hours per year to IP and arts matters from California Lawyers for the Arts, resulting in over $10,000 in matching contributions to California Lawyers for the Arts from Intel Foundation per year.

Dan Ovanezian is an IP attorney and a Partner in Lowenstein Sandler's Tech Group. He counsels companies in patent prosecution, trademarks, software copyrights, licensing, opinion letters, due diligence reviews accompanying mergers and acquisitions, IP portfolio evaluations, and pre-trial services related to patent infringement litigation. He manages the entire patent life cycle, including mining and identifying patentable inventions, leading and advising patent committees, conducting training seminars in IP matters, and prosecuting patent applications with the U.S. Patent Office. Dan has broad-based technology experience, including the design and fabrication of integrated circuit devices (e.g., processors, ASICs, programmable controllers, memories, image sensors and capacitance sensors), power management devices, disk drives, medical devices and systems, fiber optics, multi-carrier communication systems, solar power, software and networking. He counsels start-ups in their development of IP portfolios through IPOs and other exit strategies. He also helps companies establish patent committees and perform IP landscaping. Dan effectively communicates complex technologies and legal issues to provide clients with risk management solutions and value propositions at various engineering and management levels. He works with clientsundefinedwith and without inside patent counselundefinedto marshal internal company resources from various organizations (technical, business, and corporate legal) and to lead virtual teams in successfully advancing companies' IP strategies. He also negotiates with business and legal leaders of third parties for closure on IP issues. He is a guest lecturer at Santa Clara University School of Law on Patents and other Intellectual Property areas.

If you have problems registering for the November dinner meeting and want to make a reservation, please email Casey at caseymj10@hotmail.com.

DEADLINE FOR RESERVATION OR CANCELLATION: Tuesday noon, November 18, 2014. Online registration automatically closes at that time - please make your reservation online by the deadline as there are only a few extra spaces allotted at the meeting for walk-ins. The venue may not be able to serve meals beyond the guaranteed number expected for the meeting.

SVIPLA Tax ID#-77-0491659

MCLE: This event will qualify for 1 hour of CLE credit. The Silicon Valley Intellectual Property Law Association is a State Bar of California approved MCLE provider.

SVIPLA MEMBERSHIP YEAR RENEWAL DUE - 2014-2015

REMINDER: Renewal or new SVIPLA memberships are now due - the membership year is September 2014 - June 2015. Please renew your membership at time of registering for the September dinner meeting or separately atwww.svipla.org.